APPENDIX. 225 



therein their aliment and resources, which nothing could replace. 

 It is from thence that commerce finds the means of transpor- 

 tation and exchange, and that Grovernments claim the elements 

 of their protection, their safety, and even their glory. 



" It is not alone from the wealth which they offer by their 

 working, under wise regulation, that we may judge of their 

 utility. Their existence is of itself of incalculable benefit to the 

 .countries that possess them, as well as in the protection and 

 feeding of the springs and rivers as in their prevention against 

 the wasting away of the soil upon mountains, and in the bene- 

 ficial and healthful influence which they exert upon the at- 

 mosphere. 



Large forests deaden and break the force of heavy winds that 

 beat out the seeds and injure the growth of plants ; they form 

 reservoirs of moisture ; they shelter the soil of the fields ; and 

 upon the hill- sides, where the rain-waters, checked in their 

 descent by the thousand obstacles they present by their roots 

 and the trunks of trees, have time to filter into the soil and only 

 find their way by slow degrees to the rivers, they regulate, in a 

 certain degree, the flow of the waters and the hygrometrical 

 condition of the atmosj^here, and their destruction accordingly 

 increases the duration of droughts, and gives rise to the injuries 

 of inundations which denude the. face of the mountains. 



" The destruction of forests has often become to the country 

 where this has happened a real calamity and a speedy cause of 

 approaching decline and ruin. Their injury and reduction below 

 the degree of present or future wants is among the misfortunes 

 which we should provide against, and one of those errors which 

 nothing can excuse, and which nothing but centuries of perse- 

 verance and privation can repair." 



But there is another and a more cheering era in this history. 

 This is when civilization has advanced, and man, under the safe- 

 guard of laws, sets about reforming the desolated forest. 



*J£» .JU •it' 



W ^ W 



"We must make the people familiar with the facts and the 

 necessities of the case. It must come to be understood that a 

 tree or a forest planted is an investment of capital. * * The great 

 masses of our population and land-owners should be inspired 

 with correct ideas as to the importance of planting and preserving 

 trees, and taught the profits that may be derived from planting 

 waste spots with timber, where nothing else will grow to advan- 

 tage." 



"TV Tf TT 



The author then refers to statistical returns, and says that 

 " In 1874, there was in the New England, Middle, and Western 

 States, an average of thirty-three per cent, of wooded land. In 



